Background
Liz & Linda continue to investigate strange lights. They see a speck much like Kai Zita in Ch 15, coming through the haze that changes their plan.
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Liz never did well standing and gazing upward without her walking stick to lean upon. When she cross-country skied, looking up meant she would momentarily find herself losing her balance, even with ski poles.
Walking and gazing upward was no different. Banging into Linda, jarred them out of their trances.
"Maybe we'd better stand still, if we're going to look up." Linda suggested.
"You're always so task-oriented." Liz enjoyed teasing.
They noticed standing, secured by their sturdy walking sticks, enabled them to see more activity.
"Did you see that?" Linda blurted. "One of the lights passed by very fast. I didn't see where it came from."
"Darn, I did not see that. Which way was it going?"
"That way." Linda pointed in the direction they were heading."
"Great." Sarcasm oozed from Liz.
They continued treading along, halting occasionally to curiously squint at each new enigma.
"I'm kind of glad the Reservation is not this far up. They won't be involved in whatever all of this is about. I don't know if we should be afraid too.
"I can tell we're getting closer to something." Liz continued. "That smell is acrid. I feel like it's burning the inside of my nose."
Linda agreed. "I thought it was just me. I've been trying to identify that odor." She swiveled her head to the left then to the right, sniffing the whole time. "It's a strong foulness of some kind of fuel."
She took a breath. "Whoa, that was a mistake." She began coughing. "Well, I guess we might as well keep walking." Her coughing slowly dissipated.
"Good idea, let's see if we should try getting closer."
After traveling a distance that felt like a mile, Liz announced, "There's something that sounds like a helicopter."
Holding onto her walking stick, Liz tipped her head back, shook her fist, and yelled up at the unseen helicopter, "You're a little late, aren't you? You were supposed to rescue me when I was in the middle of that leg-and body-sucking-swamp. Good thing I had Linda."
They both cracked up laughing. "I think we're getting our answer soon," announced Liz.
"That's weird," Linda said, "It looks like they're throwing down some kind of giant red sheet from the helicopter."
The red necklace-like lights slowly faded, while some white opals of light vanished.
"What's that? Do you see the speck in the fog?"
"Whatever it is, it doesn't look like Kai Zita at all." She was the mysterious- anachronistically-acting-and-outfitted Native American woman who rescued them with bread and berries in their stalled car.
"I doubt it is bringing us any berries or bread." There was melancholy in Liz's voice.
A large-headed thin-bodied creature shouldered through the curtain of murkiness as if it were walking through pudding. The two slowly eased backward. Turning their heads, they were preparing to run as fast and as far as they could, from their impending doom.
Their legs' pumped-up muscles and feet stopped as quickly as their thoughts.
It spoke. It spoke human. It spoke English, roughly. "What are you two doing out here? You've got to turn it right back around toward where you came from. You cannot be here. Now leave...Go along, away with you."
Tears welled up in Liz's eyes and it wasn't from the biting stinging atmosphere. She looked at Linda who could only shake her drooping head.
They walked away from the uniformed authority figure. "Let's just walk a little farther and make a plan," Liz whispered.
"What are we going to do? We cannot turn around and go all the way back. We won't." Linda was resolved as she stomped her foot and struck the pavement with her walking stick.
Liz looked back to see where he was. He had disappeared into the gloom. "We've gotta get closer. He came from the center. If we go up one of the sides, maybe we can avoid him and see what's going on.
Liz fluffed her shirt, rolling up her sleeves. "I feel like I'm having a hot flash. I'm suddenly burning up."
"Me too, I thought it was just me." Linda fluttered the waist of her t-shirt. "I don't get hot flashes anymore." There was a tone of puzzlement in Linda's response.
Liz wrinkled up her nose saying, "The stench has changed. Take a whiff of the air now. I detect wood, mixed with melted plastic and that caustic odoriferous fuel we smelled early-on.
"I hear a lot of yelling. And that red is very bright on the left side of the duskiness. It's like a whole wall of red. And there are those helicopter blades whirring again. Whatever it is, we're on top of it, or underneath it," pronounced Liz.
"There's a lower wall of red farther away on the right. We should probably try to sneak by on that side."
